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LEOMINSTER -- These first three days of high school football practice are an absolute beast.

There's no shoulder pads. There's no contact.

But there certainly is a whole lot of running.

All players have been pushing their bodies to the limit since Monday during these dreaded conditioning practices.

It's an important part of the football process, however, training the mind and body to overcome adversity.

"It's needed greatly because some of these guys have got to get some work done," said Leominster senior right guard Nate Lambert during Wednesday's uptempo practice behind the high school. "I've seen a lot of these kids in the summer time putting in a lot of good work -- I was with a lot of them -- and these three days have been eye openers to a lot of these kids.

"I'm right there with them. I've done it all my life when I played," said Palazzi, a 1984 LHS grad who excelled at quarterback for UMass Amherst in the late 1980s. "These days are the worst. No one likes to run, run, run and condition, but it needs to be done. You want to be out there hitting and not playing touch football here. They get through it."

Lambert says it's easy to tell who put in the training time during the offseason and who's been sitting around all summer watching television.

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"You can tell by how they're breathing, how they're standing when we do a drill and you can tell by their body language," said the 6-foot, 200-pound Lambert, dripping with sweat after completing a drill. "Some of these kids are doing good, and about a quarter of the kids have a lot of work to do. That's what we're here for."

What does Palazzi hope his team accomplished in the three days of conditioning?

"Just football moves with the bag drills and the ropes and the conditioning," he said. "Just get these guys in football shape or at least get them to realize how bad of shape they are in or really where they're at. You get to see the speed of the guys or the athletic ability through some ball drills and things like that. That's what we're evaluating, but you can't really evaluate until they get the pads on."

And the pads officially go on Thursday for the start of the dreaded double sessions. Leominster will practice from 9-11 a.m. and then 1-3 p.m. today.

"We'll get after it pretty good," Palazzi said.

The players are also looking forward to suiting up with full gear and smashing the other guy in front of them.

For the first three days of training camp, Palazzi likes what he sees from his Blue Devils.

"I like the morale of the team," he said. "I like the fact that everyone truly believes they are fighting for a position, which they are, and no one feels anything has been given to anybody."

The excitement is definitely in the air. Well, after all, it's football season.

"I've been counting down these days until camp since last season really," Lambert said. "Football season is what it means over here and the excitement level is over the ceiling for a lot of these guys, including me."

Said Palazzi: "It's actually pretty exciting. Last year is last year. It's a whole new group of kids, new excitement with the juniors becoming seniors and it's good to see because they put the hard work in over the years."

Leominster has a ton of work to do from now until the opener -- on the road at St. John's of Shrewsbury on Saturday, Sept. 13.

"I hope to get our new faces confident with what we're doing," Palazzi said. "We have five returning starters out of 22. Part of the maturation process or how we evolve is going to be the comfortability with those guys in those positions and really how comfortable they are being uncomfortable. I love that saying when the pressure is on."

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